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Fox on the run...this was the best picture we could get of a fox wandering through a neighbor’s backyard late one morning last week.

Foxes...lady bugs...bats...and other stuff...

This week, we’re going to start with our latest Critter Sighting Updates... Fox sitting on our front porch. Yup. Fox sitting on our front porch? Really? We did not actually see this. A fellow traveler on The Journey Through Life spotted the critter early one morning last week. Our front porch...
Bat? Bird? Bug? UFO? Or, maybe, just a bit of dust on the camera’s lens? Can’t be sure. The image was captured during last week’s partial lunar eclipse.

Full Moon...by any other name...and some more stuff...

Seemed like Mother Nature tried to end our drought with a Great Big Ol’ Downpour at about the same time I was heading to The Paragraph Factory in Anna Monday morning. I believe we had about 2 inches of water in our unofficial backyard rain gauge after that deluge, which made for an interesting...
Splish, splash, Rocky was takin’ a bath in the “pond” in the photographer’s backyard...on a Friday...maybe the critter was getting ready for the weekend.

Rocky gets ready for the weekend...and other stuff

I’m not quite why it crossed it mind Monday evening, but there it was... We’ll come back to that thought in just a bit... Meanwhile... I know you can’t wait, so here is my latest Critter Sighting (and Smelling) Update... Dead skunk out there. Somewhere. Probably in the middle of the road. Yup....
Bears were spotted last week at the Union County Fair in Anna...

Bears out there...at the Union County Fair...

There were bears out there. One bear. Two bears. Three bears. Maybe even four bears. I saw them. I really did... ...at the Union County Fair...  ...there’s even a picture to prove it... Recent adventures on The Journey Through Life also have included foxes. Maybe a mountain lion. A raccoon...or two...
July 28...clouds billowed into the sky over Cobden during the evening. The photographer (that would be me) did a little magic in Photoshop to highlight the steeple at the First Baptist Church in Cobden...just to give an idea of the immensity of the clouds.

The Journey Through Life is just peachy...

Once again this week, we’ll be offering a little bit of this...and a little bit of that...and some pics of the sky... ...a “weather map” posted online shortly before 7 o’clock Tuesday evening, July 30, was rather interesting. “Watches, Warnings & Advisories” for parts of Southern Illinois (...
One more memory from a recent visit to Old Man River...an egret (well, I think it's an egret) was doing a balancing act on a rather large piece of driftwood (as in a log) that was floating in the water along the banks of the river at Grand Tower. The egret flew the coop, so to speak, when a towboat approached. By the way...I think there was an oak buffet with a beveled mirror hidden in there...or maybe an arrowhead...

This week's menu features word salad...

Goodness, gracious...it’s August already. How can that be possible? As often happens with this weekly word salad, I started with some lettuce and switched to cucumbers... OK. That’s pretty silly. Blame it on the wonderfully excessive heat and humidity we’ve experienced this week in the Land Between...
Minnie Pearl Quertermous

Minnie Pearl Quertermous

Minnie Pearl Quertermous, 97, of Cobden, died Wednesday, July 17, 2024, at Shawnee Senior Living in Herrin, with four generations of her family at her bedside.  She was born on May 18, 1927, in Charleston, Mo., the daughter of Thomas and Muriel Leach Sands.  She married the love of her life,...
The towboat Mt Vernon was making its way north on the Mississippi River at Grand Tower late last Friday morning. Mississippi River water was lapping at the edge of what I think is a boat launch area along the river. The water in the river had been stirred up by the towboat’s passage. The towboat was going under a landmark natural gas pipeline bridge which crosses the river.

Spending some time with Old Man River...

Oh...to be able to string together a few words like fellow journalist Mark Twain... We’ll come back to Mr. Twain in just a little bit... Monday night, the “front porch heat index” was something like 158 degrees at our humble abode. The “front porch heat index” is something I pretty much made up. It...
While wandering around on a daily walkabout last Sunday afternoon, the photographer was lucky enough to spot a bunch of dragonflies. “Bunch,” by the way, is a scientific term for “a whole bunch.” These were just a couple of them...

Special creatures spotted on a Sunday afternoon...

Last Sunday afternoon, the sun was shining and, as far as could be determined, the heat index was not 109 degrees. That was quite an improvement over what we experienced in our little corner of the world on Independence Day. Since it did not seem likely that a person would melt, or at the least...
This egret couldn’t wait for the fish fry...so it had sushi instead. The picture was taken last Friday afternoon at a local farm pond.

Sushi...and a Strawberry Moon for dessert...

Finally...after all of the build up and excitement...I heard my first cicadas last Sunday evening while sitting out on the front porch. I had thought there were supposed to be something like billions and billions, maybe even trillions, of the bug-eyed bugs making an appearance this year in the Land...

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Anna, Illinois 62906
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